132 
Reviews of Foreign Literature. 
Dictionaire de Botanique. H. Baillon. (4to, 4 volumes, Paris, 
1876-1892). 
This most valuable work of Prof. Baillon is just completed by 
the appearance of the thirty-fourth fascicle. It is the greatest 
storehouse of botanical information extant, and the world owes 
its learned author a high sense of gratitude for the years of labor 
and research expended on it. In these four grand volumes may 
be found an answer to almost any question that arises in the 
whole broad field of botanical science; nearly every generic 
name ever used in either phanerogams or cryptogams is here 
alluded to and referred to its original place of publication ; com- 
mon names in all languages are given and usually extended ac- 
counts of taxonomical or descriptive terms. The work is freely 
illustrated. Without these books any scientific library is incom- 
plete. N. L. B. 
Halbflechten. In Flora 1891, pp. 92-107, is an article by H. 
Zukal on “ Halbflechten” or half-lichens. The author applies 
this name to three distinct classes of plants. First to certain 
plants having the appearance of lichens, but which are found on 
examination to lack the alge, therefore really they are saprophy- 
tic fungi. Another class are said to find the suitable alge only 
occasionally, and when this is the case, they unite with them, 
forming a regular hypha-thallus. Still a third class in which the — 
fungus hyphe are always found combined with algze, but in such 
a manner as to resemble any ordinary fungus parasite, rather than 
hose known as lichen-forming parasites. 
He describes three new species which may be classed as half 
lichens, and another which cannot be classed among these. This 
last is a parasite on certain Scytonema species and has one very 
interesting feature. It produces alge galls, as the author calls 
them, which are inhabited by the vegetative part of the mycelium, 
while the fruit hyphz penetrate the cells of the alge and finally 
kill it. | Oa ag : 
Diatomées especes nouvelles marines, fossiles ou pélagiques. Prof. 7 
J. Brun. (Reprint from Memoires de la Société de physique — 
et d’histoire naturelle de Genéve, Tome xxxi., Seconde partic, 
No. 1; 12 plates and 47 pages of text). ; 
